


leave my beating heart behind (sold my soul)

by cryptidkidprem



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, On Hiatus, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, kevin day is a bisexual mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-08-04 10:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16345049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidkidprem/pseuds/cryptidkidprem
Summary: Kevin Day met his soulmate when he was twelve-years-old, only to lose him forever hours later.Or, at least that's what he thought, until Neil Josten bolted into his life and brought with him a fire Kevin hadn't felt in a long time.





	1. Eight Years Ago

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys remember how i literally just finished writing one soulmate au like 4.5 seconds ago?? well i have immediately hopped Right back on my bullshit for another one!!!! so here's the thing. a while ago my girl jersey (aka my biggest kevneil enabler) made [this post](https://jamespottersbutt.tumblr.com/post/176854197866/okay-but) and my bitch ass just latched right onto it. i'd been planning to write a kevineil fic for ages but i never really knew what i wanted to write. combine that with my love for soulmate aus, and this post saved my whole entire ass and life.
> 
> anyway. this is just a prologue of sorts. u guys don't even KNOW how hard it was to call neil 'nathaniel' or write riko doing anything that isn't getting punched in the face 46 times and then murdered. i literally had to do a search and replace to replace all the accidental 'neil's that slipped in there with 'nathaniel.' can't wait to write kev and neil as foxes instead. 
> 
> this mostly follows the same timeline as the books, so unfortunately ratko will probably continue to appear, but honestly i hate him so much i'm keeping any actual scenes with him to a minimum. 
> 
> the title is a lyric from the song ["sold my soul" by blitz kids](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYpaLdjz66A) which is. a big, Big kevneil mood and this fic's Official Anthem so i recommend listening to that song at least 96 times while u read.

Kevin Day met his soulmate when he was twelve years old.

 

For all that Kevin had heard about the Butcher, (which was, admittedly, not that much) he’d never known he had a son until he was looking at him in his bright blue eyes.

Scrawny, short, and determined, he appeared on the Raven’s court one day with no warning or explanation. Well, there probably had been some kind of warning, some kind of explanation, but Kevin was not privy to any of that. He wasn’t important enough to get that kind of information. 

“What position do you play?” Riko asked, and Kevin’s eyes automatically flicked to him. He realized they’d been kind of glued to Nathaniel until that point. He hoped no one had noticed.

He was pretty sure Nathaniel had noticed. He was staring right back at Kevin.

He hadn’t even looked at Riko until Riko asked him a direct question. Riko had been an afterthought. And that… that was dangerous. This kid would need to learn that or he’d be dead by lunchtime.

“Backliner,” Nathaniel said, almost defensive, like a challenge, standing straighter. He wasn’t all that impressive in size — shorter than Kevin, shorter than Riko, scrawny as hell for a defense player — but he took up a lot of space. Almost as much as Riko.

Riko stood, radiating ice (ice was better than white-hot fury), and finally nodded. “Then we can scrimmage. You defend, me and Kevin try to get past.”

“That’s two against one,” Nathaniel pointed out.

Kevin wondered he it was possible that he hadn’t been frozen to death by Riko’s icy glare yet. “If you’re any good at all on the court, you can handle two strikers.”

“Fine,” Nathaniel said, restless and spiteful. “Can we play now?”

He hadn’t even bothered to ask them their names. Maybe he already knew them, that was always a possibility. Who didn’t know Kevin Day and Riko Moriyama. Kevin already knew they were famous for a pair of sixth-graders; Exy prodigies and future Ravens.

Or maybe he just cared more about the game then trivial nonsense that didn’t matter. Kevin really, really hoped for the latter. That would be something they had in common. Exy was the only thing that mattered, that could make Kevin’s heart feel light and alive.

And so they played.

Nathaniel’s game had flaws. He missed some saves even Kevin, a striker, could’ve managed, and his footwork was clumsy in certain areas. But he played with his whole heart, just like Kevin.

And he kept looking at Kevin like Kevin had any right to be looked at; like he was his own person instead of just Riko’s shadow.

The scrimmage ended, and Riko pulled Kevin aside, letting Nathaniel precede them into the locker room. “What do you think?”

Kevin turned his eyes away from Riko — only for a second — to watching the retreating form of Nathaniel. “He has potential,” Kevin decided. "He's good."

Riko nodded, like Kevin was just confirming something he already knew. “He might come and play with us,” he said. “The Master is considering buying him for us. If he does good enough tomorrow.”

Kevin wasn’t sure how visible his surprise was, or the excitement that chased it. He… He liked playing with Nathaniel. A little jolt of nerves hit his stomach, and he looked back at Riko. He swallowed. “What if he doesn't make the cut?”

Riko shrugged dismissively. “Who cares?” And then he turned to follow Nathaniel into the locker room.

Kevin hesitated for half a second, but he followed. He couldn’t _not_ follow.

In the process of changing out for dinner, Kevin passed Nathaniel on his way to his own locker. Since they wasn’t officially on the team yet, he and Riko kept their things separate from the main set of Raven lockers. He couldn’t help but give Nathaniel a quick once over in his peripheral vision as he passed. He caught a glimpse of some white lines (not many more than Kevin himself had collected at this point) criss-crossing the skin on his torso, but he didn’t want to get caught staring so he had to look away before he could be sure.

In Kevin’s haste to look like he wasn’t paying Nathaniel any extra mind, he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, and he bumped into Nathaniel’s shoulder on his way by. It was such a minor thing neither one of them even stopped to acknowledge it, and by the time Kevin made it to the showers it had completely slid from his mind as irrelevant.

Kevin never would’ve guessed a moment of clumsiness would’ve permanently changed his life the way it did. And he didn’t even realize what had happened until later that night.

Nathaniel wasn’t one of them, so he wasn’t staying in with Kevin and Riko and the Ravens down in the Nest. After their last practice late that night, he left with his mother, with assurances from the Master that he would return in the morning for another test.

Kevin didn’t usually tire just from playing Exy, but today had been such a whirlwind he was yawning, ready to collapse when he finally got back to his and Riko’s room that night.

Kevin was blearily rooting through his dresser until he found a suitable shirt to wear to bed. He pulled his dirty shirt over his head, tossed it into the laundry basket, and was about to pull on his pajama shirt when he felt vice-like fingers on his bicep. Kevin was able to stop himself from flinching, but not able to stop himself from going completely rigid. It was an automatic response he hadn’t learned to control yet.

“What the hell is that?”

When his body unfroze, Kevin turned to look at Riko, stopping himself from taking a step backwards. He’d always been a little taller than Riko, especially with his most recent growth spurt, but Riko always seemed to take up so much more space than Kevin ever had.

Riko was staring at his arm, so Kevin looked down himself, the shirt he'd planned on wearing clutched tightly in his hands. And then he blinked.

Right there on his arm, starting just above his elbow and ending a few inches shy of his shoulder, was a splash of vivid red and orange mingling together over his skin like a fiery-colored bruise.

Kevin swallowed. Really, there was no question _what_ it was. Even at twelve, with most of his conscious memories taking place within the sheltered walls of the Nest, Kevin knew what a soulmark was. He was pretty sure there wasn't a living person on this planet who wouldn't be able to spot one.

He just never thought he’d see one on his own skin.

Kevin shook his head. “I don’t know,” he answered, because the real question there had been _who is it_. Only, as soon as he said it, he realized he _did_ know. And judging by the look on his face, Riko did, too. Kevin stood his ground as best he could, holding Riko’s gaze for as long as he could before he had to duck his head.

Riko finally let him go, and, with a shake of his head, he turned away. Kevin let out a breath he really even realize he’d been holding. He knew this wouldn’t be the end of it, but it looked like he had some time to at least sort out the mess of his own jumbled thoughts. Maybe he’d even get the chance to talk to Nathaniel about this in the morning.

Except Nathaniel never arrived for practice the next morning. Kevin and Riko waited in the locker room for almost an hour before they got the news. Nathaniel’s arrival hadn’t been important enough for their ears, but apparently his disappearance was. He would _never_ be coming back; from the looks of things, his mother had stolen him away in the night. The Butcher’s entire army would be looking for them. They didn’t stand a chance. Kevin focused all his energy on remaining impassive, but it was hard when he knew his soulmate would most likely be dead by the end of the day.

 

So, yes, Kevin met his soulmate when he was twelve. But within _hours_ he’d already lost him forever.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEESH sorry for the wait y'all. deadass this has taken me so long to finish i cannot even remember writing some of it
> 
> uh. i had planned to make this chapter longer, but. it's been months since i posted & i decided i should just publish what i have. i figure a shorter update is better than waiting even longer for any update at all kjhdfgdjkg
> 
> pls enjoy. thanks for the patience. hopefully the next chapter will be out fast, but. honestly i can't promise anything

Millport, Arizona, was one of the most unremarkable towns Kevin had ever set foot in. He knew Foxes came from all walks of life, but he found it hard to believe this place had bred the kind of passion he’d seen in the boy he was here to see.

He'd been to plenty of boring towns in his life, but this one definitely took the cake. It had probably been completely pointless to even replace his camera before coming. What even was there to photograph? The complete and total nothing that stretched between this sorry excuse for a town and the concrete ocean at the Phoenix airport? He hadn’t even found reason to take his camera out of his bag, and he probably wouldn’t before he, Andrew, and Wymack flew home tomorrow.

The sooner he signed this striker and got back to PSU, the better.

“If you’re so anxious to leave, why does it look like you’re setting up a new home office over there?” Andrew asked, glancing over his shoulder from where he was rifling through the team’s racquets, picking each one up and testing its weight before he tossed it aside.

Kevin threw a frown in his direction. He might not have needed to bring Neil Josten’s entire folder with him to the recruitment, but he felt more prepared this way. And he’d just spread them out around him on the entertainment center because Josten was taking longer than Kevin and Wymack had anticipated and now he was just getting antsy and needed something to do with his hands.

“I just want to get a look at his stats,” Kevin said defensively.

“I’m fairly certain you’ve had those stats memorized for weeks now,” Andrew said, his signature drugged-up smile firmly in place. “You could probably recite those numbers in your sleep.”

Kevin shook his head and scowled. The mountain of spite that lived inside of him debated, briefly, with the (smaller) portion of his brain pushing for rational thought. Arguing with a medicated Andrew was a useless endeavor, and he knew this well enough by now. He should probably just avoid that rabbit hole entirely before his hot-headedness took over and things got out of hand. He had more important things that needed his attention, and he didn’t want to face his new recruit flustered and annoyed.

But even rational thought and spite wound up losing to the loudest voice whispering in Kevin’s ear: Anxiety. He felt the need to justify himself, even to Andrew, even after all this time. “I want to be prepared,” he told him.

Andrew spun a borrowed (stolen? Pilfered?) racquet around in his hands as if testing its weight, swung it experimentally through the air in slow-motion, and then dropped it unceremoniously on the floor by his feet with an uncomfortably loud crack for such a light racquet. Kevin stopped himself from visibly cringing. At least these were low-quality high school racquets and not the decent ones he liked from Exites.

“How prepared do you need to be to meet some random high schooler from what might actually be the literal middle of nowhere?” Andrew asked him, without even looking Kevin’s way this time. Instead, he pulled another student’s racquet out of the rack to inspect.

Kevin wasn’t sure if Andrew was just doing it to piss Kevin off, or if he just needed something to occupy himself with thanks to all the manic energy his drugs lent him.

Even if the former wasn’t Andrew’s intent, Kevin still hated to see it, so he turned back to his papers instead. After a few seconds of thought, he finally found a way out of another pointless argument, and he grasped onto it. “He should be here by now,” Kevin commented, tapping his foot against the ground. Josten’s coach had said he liked to shower last, but all his teammates had cleared out several minutes ago. Wymack had finally had to go asking after him, but he still didn’t know where the kid had gotten off to.

“Maybe Coach’s ugly mug scared him off,” Andrew suggested happily. Well, not happily. Kevin knew he wasn’t happy no matter how wide his shitty medication made him smile.

Knowing the type of athletes Wymack recruited for his team, Kevin wouldn’t be surprised if that was true. And even though he had no right to the feeling, Kevin still managed to feel a little stung hearing his father insulted. “He should at least hear us out,” Kevin said, trying not to sound to plaintive.

“Why are you telling me this? I have no control over this boy’s actions, Kevin,” Andrew informed him.

Kevin nodded. That much was true, but Kevin was notoriously terrible at reigning in his anxiety. Thankfully, Kevin’s next words were ripped from his throat and buried in the sound of a crash from the opposite side of the locker room. Kevin couldn’t stop himself from flinching, but luckily the ruckus had also captured Andrew’s attention, so he didn’t notice Kevin’s momentary lapse.

Before Kevin could even start to register what had just happened, Andrew swung with his pilfered racquet, and— and then, who Kevin could only assume was Neil Josten, was on the ground, wheezing and coughing from a blow to his gut.

Kevin blinked, and then scowled. He might’ve said something, but a second later his father was storming into the room, and he took the job of griping at Andrew off of Kevin’s shoulders.

Kevin barely even heard what the two of them said. He was focused on Neil Josten. It was the first time he’d seen him in person, and Neil was going to be on the line with him, why shouldn’t he stare? It wasn’t like he was particularly… remarkable to look at, or anything. No, it had nothing to do with that.

It seemed like Neil hadn’t even seen Kevin yet. He was too busy with Andrew and Coach, so Kevin got the chance to observe him in peace, comfortably aware that for once, there was no attention on him.

And then Neil said, “I’m not good enough to play on the same court as him,” and Kevin knew _he_ was the _him_ Neil was talking about. He was right, but it didn’t matter.

Even Janie, although twice as talented, hadn’t shown half the passion Kevin saw in Neil, and Kevin knew if he just got him on the same court, he would be able to shape Neil into an Olympic-level striker. Kevin’s hand twitched with the anticipation he felt for finally getting to practice with this kid.

“True,” Kevin said, impatient and more than a little irritated that Neil was dragging this out any longer than it needed to go on for, “but irrelevant.”

And then Neil looked at him for the first time, and Kevin’s blood froze.

There was this _look_ on his face that Kevin had trouble deciphering at first. It was a paralyzed stare that unnerved Kevin, shook something loose inside of him that he couldn’t even manage to name. He… he looked like he’d seen a ghost; and Kevin didn’t just mean he looked spooked or freaked out. No, this wasn’t so paltry. The expression Neil Josten favored Kevin with was so jarring and bone-chilling it truly looked like he’d just watched the dead rise.

But he was Kevin Day, and if there was one thing he’d learned growing up in the Raven’s Nest alongside Riko Moriyama, it was how to hide his feelings. He’d long ago mastered the art of clamping down his emotions when he really needed to, in order to present a suitable appearance for the press or the school or whoever else he had to convince he was okay. So Kevin did just that, and sent what he hoped was an unimpressed stare at the man in front of him.

And in the amount of time it took Kevin to blink, the look was gone. Erased off Neil’s face so quickly and so entirely Kevin was almost able to convince himself he’d imagined it, if it hadn't been for the goosebumps prickling his forearms, reminding him that something had this boy's alarm bells screaming.

“What are you doing here?” Neil asked him.

The answer was so obvious Kevin didn’t even bother to give it; Neil knew why they were here, so he countered with: “Why were you leaving?”

“I asked first,” Neil said, stubborn and indignant.

Kevin had to fight now to roll his eyes. “Coach already told you,” he said, “We’re waiting for you to sign. Stop wasting our time.”

And then, for some reason, Neil said, “No. There are thousands of strikers who’d jump at the chance to play with you. Why don’t you bother them?”

“We saw their files. We chose you,” Wymack answered. In truth, Kevin had chosen Neil, had _insisted_ on Neil, but Wymack had backed up his decision.

“I won’t play with Kevin,” Neil told him, looking over to Kevin’s father for a brief second before returning to him.

Kevin set his jaw, infuriation and frustration coming in waves.It was probably the first time Kevin had had to  _argue_ with someone to join the line. The high school students he’d met, especially since joining the Foxes, weren’t normally the type to turn down a free ride to college, even if it meant playing for the worst team in Class I. This boy had everything Kevin longed for with every cell and atom in his body: he had two working hands, a natural spark for Exy, and the future that Riko had taken from Kevin was now laid out before him on a silver platter, but he seemed determined _not_ to take it for whatever reason.

“You will,” Kevin told him.

Even Wymack didn’t seem to be getting through to him, so before Neil could argue further, Kevin butted in, trying to convey why he needed Neil on the line. The last words out of his mouth were probably the most genuine. It felt like Kevin had scraped them up from the bottom of his stomach, the way they almost burned his throat on the way out. “You play like you have everything to lose,” Kevin told him.

Neil’s face, imploring and confused, flashed with that dark-something again. His eyes flicked briefly down to the mark on Kevin’s arm before returning to his face a millisecond later, which shouldn’t have bothered Kevin; it was a big blotchy red thing, and when he wore T-shirts like the one he had on today, it was very prominent. And yet, Kevin still felt his skin start to prickle.

“That’s why,” Neil finally breathed.

“That’s the only type of striker worth playing with.”

There was a beat of silence wherein Neil held Kevin’s gaze and no one in the room said a thing, but Kevin was almost sure they had him this time. His shoulders slumped, tension draining visibly from his body, and the look on his face was more conflicted than anything else at this point.

The argument wasn’t over, but Kevin could see Neil’s resolve to turn them down crumble as Wymack continued to shoot down his excuses one-by-one.

Kevin watched, and didn’t even protest when his father told him and Andrew to leave. He just gathered his files and followed Andrew outside to the parking lot where their rented SUV was waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so just fyi i'm definitely not planning on having this be like a shot for shot retelling of tfc. i don't want to just rewrite the book with like a kevneil twist or w/e. this does follow the same timeline as the books, but most of the content in this fic will explore scenes we didn't see in the books themselves or scenes that are new for this universe. unavoidably, there are gonna be a few scenes (the fall banquet scene and the scene on the court afterwards, probably something from baltimore) from the books thrown in along the way but mostly i wanna just write my own junk. i think that's more fun

**Author's Note:**

> anyway, here's the shameless tumblr plug. feel free to come hang out with me on the hellsite over [@trojean](http://trojean.tumblr.com/).
> 
> just a heads up that this fic is still a MAJOR wip. this is the Only chapter i have finished. normally i don't even post work until i get at least 75% of the fic written but i have a habit of abandoning wips so i just want to post this so i can sort of. shame and pressure myself into actually fucking finishing it. so patience is much appreciated as the next chapter is probably a long way off.


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